The Genius of Photography: Snap Judgements

Q1: How Many photographs are taken in a a year?

A1: 880 Billion

Q2: How does Gregory Crewdson work?

A2: Crewdson works with a production crew from a film, using cinematic lighting. He also has a director of photography and camera operator because he does not touch the camera himself. He just calls it a required 'instrument'.

Q3: Which prints command the highest price & what are they called?

A3: The prints that command the highest price are those taken by the photographer themselves at the time of the actual event, called 'vintage' or 'original'.

Q4: How does Ben Lewis see Jeff Walls photography?

A4: Lewis sees Walls as a photographer who did not invent photography but as a man who brought it back into the 21st  century. He admires how his work call social concerns into focus such as gender and racial stereotyping.

Q5: How many photographs does Andreas Gursky produce and what scale are they?

A5: Gursky produces 2 photographs and they cover more square meters than any other photographers work in any gallery.

Q6: What makes the photographs of Seydou Keita different from the photographs of Africa in the media?

A6: In Keita's photography people are shown, no matter their actual lifestyle, to be wealthy as they are photographed with many clothes, bikes, scooters and cars.


One photographer from the documentary whose work I liked was Robert Adams.

We Are Family

Question: Who said: "the camera gave me the license to strip away what you want people to know about you, to reveal what you can't help people knowing about you'?

Answer: Diane Arbus


Question: Do you think that photographers tend to pray on vulnerable people?

Answer: Honestly this is not a question that has a yes or no answer. Sometimes it does appear that photographers can pray on those who are vulnerable. However other times they would take photos of people who would not be concidered vulnerable such as the wealthy. But the big question that then arises from the first question is who do we consider vulnerable, some can be physically, ecomically or mentally vulnerable and who determines who is who.


Question: What is Larry Clark's Tulsa project about?

Answer: It is a project about the youth of a suburb involving sex, drugs and guns from Clark's hometown of Tulsa, Oklahoma.


Question: What is the title of Nan Goldin's most renowned work?

Answer: The Ballad of Sexual Dependency.


Question? What is Nobuyoshi Araki's and what does he photograph today?


Answer: He believes that if you don not shoot photography than you do not remember life and so now he only takes photos of thing's in life he wants to remember. Today he photographs his daily life and the people he encounters and events which take place.


Question? What was Richard Billingham's work about?

Answer: His work was about the working class life in Margaret Thatcher's Britain and in particularly the life of his separated parents. His father was also an alcoholic.


Photographer:  One photographer whose work I really enjoyed from the film was that of Larry Sultan. This reason for this was he was capturing everyday life in the Reagan era USA, of his parents and family and although the pictures are very bright there feels that there is an underlying sense of darns and despair. It is almost as if they are not real.

Airbrushing and Slimming

Airbrush Original

Airbrush Re-done

Slimming Original

Slimming Re-done

Photo Montage

Super Man and Background Finished

Original Background

Super Man Original

Punisher and Fire

Punisher Original

Explosion Original

Photoshop: Black & White + Photo Manipulation

Brian Before

Brian After

Guy Before

Guy After

Aquarium Original

Aquarium Copy with Crop Tool

Four Courts Original

Four Courts After

Dublin Docks Original

Dublin Docks Colored Pencil

Dublin Docks Glass

Dublin Docks Craquelure 

2 Girls Original

2 Girls in Red

'The Genius of Photography: Right Place, Right Time'

Q: What is described as 'one of the most familiar concepts of photography'?

A: Henri Cartier-Bresson was the first person to create the 'Decisive Moment' concept which has now become described as the most familiar in photography.

Q: Should you trust photography?

A: It is widely regarded that we should not fully trust photography. Arthur C. Danto the recently deceased american art critic once said "it was a huge mistake to trust the photograph from the beginning.

Q: What was revolutionary about the Leica in 1925?

A: The Leica was revolutionary because it was compact, quite, a new lens and also it allowed the photographer to have one eye to the side, viewing what they were capturing as the view was now close to the edge of the camera.

Q: What did George Bernard Shaw say about all the paintings of Christ?

A: George Bernard Shaw once said that he 'would exchange all the paintings of Christ for one snap shot'.

Q: Why were Tony Vaccaro's negatives destroyed by the army censors?

A: Acting as the armies official photographer Vaccaro was under army regulations to use a Speed Graphic Camera, however this was far too big and difficult to carry around so Vaccaro decide to use an Argus C3, developing the pictures in army helmets. His photographs were extremely graphic capturing images of dead GI's and the army felt the public was not prepared to see these images and so destroyed the negatives.

Q: Who was Henryk Ross, what was his job?

A: Henryk Ross was a Polish Jew living in the Lodz Nazi ghetto in Poland. He was employed by the Department of Statistics for the Jewish Council as a photographer. He did this was also capturing the horrific treatment the Nazis inflicted on Jewish people, while also maintaing a good relationship with the German occupiers, by taking propaganda photography for them.

Q: Which show was a 'sticking plaster for the wounds of the war', how many people saw it and what cliche photograph did it end on?

A: The Family of Man was the show, first shown in 1955, which was described as a 'sticking plaster for the wounds of the war'. It was seen by over 9 Million people and it ended with a photograph by photographer W Eugene Smith which was called 'The Walk to Paradise Garden'. It was a picture depicting two children waking into sunlight with blackness behind them depicitng the cliched idea of a bright and prosperous future lying ahead for everybody.

Exposure Exercise = Aperture and Shutter Speed

Great Depth of Field

Slow Shutter Speed

Fast Shutter Speed

Shallow Depth of Field

Panning